The rise of the Organization: A man-made evolution through the gradual concentration of power - Softcover

Marlow, Dr Nigel Howard

Softcover

ISBN 13: 9798268370942

Publisher: Independently published, 2025

Synopsis

In the “The rise of the Organization”, an attempt is made to make modern organizations ‘more visible’ to the reader. We use a brief historical overview of the emergence of factories and organizations from the time of the Industrial Revolution (c.a. 1900) to the present day in order to illustrate the interplay between organizational values and our social and political environments.
Organizations grew in size and power during this 120-year period reflecting a particular economic philosophy and value-system of their owners and leaders. This focused on material success, fiscal growth, and profit. These values were, and still are, mainly the drivers for 'progress'.
Alongside this material growth there was a subtle influence on the process of change affecting the cultural values of society. This has had far reaching consequences, which for the majority of the population remain implicit and unrecognized.
Modern ‘organizations’, as employers, have a great deal of influence over the individual’s quality of working life (Q.W.L). However, organizations also have a powerful influence beyond their physical boundaries. This may be intentional, as in when trying to influence potential customers with marketing campaigns, or when attempting to encourage or block impending legislation through lobbying. But for much of the time, this external influence is (hopefully) an unintentional byproduct of the processes involved in the production of goods and services.
We illustrate the pivotal role of organizations in our modern economies using our “Ford-to-Freud” model, which shows how our motivation for incessant economic growth and technological progress is having an increasingly detrimental effect on the natural Environment. This negative effect is apparent when the rise in ‘greenhouse gas’ emissions is tracked alongside economic growth - both have risen exponentially over the last 120 years.
The current culture within our modern economies, particularly in respect to what we have learned to value, has been gradually developed only over the last century or so. The direction and speed of the changes stem from the self-interested activity of organizations.
For instance most of us accept that there is a ‘a place of work’ that is separate from ‘home’. That 'somewhere-else' has a particular set of rules for behaviour - suddenly our friends and neighbours may be ‘above’ or ‘below’ us in an hierarchy. There is a regular ‘clock-time’ for work, and we are pressured to 'commute' to and from these places of work daily. The 'commute-time' is our ‘own time’ and is not considered either in 'working hours' or remuneration.
Forests of concrete and glass towers are now more regularly visited and by more people than our natural forests.New generations have come to prefer interaction with ‘friends’ electronically via the Web rather than face to face, (even before COVID arrived)!
All of this, and more, is now accepted as ‘normal’ and somehow inevitable as the result of ‘progress'.
However, we should remind ourselves that set against the 200,000 year history of Man[1], 'organizations' are very recent creations and are certainly not ‘God-given’. Even if, in our 'manufactured-cultures', the majority of people admire 'captains-of-industry' and 'rich-list habitues' and rely the 'value' of famous brands to boost self-image, we should still be allowed to question 'organizations’ and evaluate their relative contribution to the welfare of the People and the health of the Planet, without being accused of being a heretic and/or agent of 'conspiracy'.


[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/essential-timeline-understanding-evolution-homo-sapiens-180976807/

Edition details

• Publisher: Independently published
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 13: 9798268370942
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 44